


Sniped

by CuriosityRedux



Series: Dragon Drabbles AU's [10]
Category: How to Train Your Dragon (Movies)
Genre: Assassin AU, F/M, Hiccstrid - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-27
Updated: 2018-11-27
Packaged: 2019-08-30 03:45:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16757053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CuriosityRedux/pseuds/CuriosityRedux
Summary: Astrid struggles with carrying out her latest hit.





	Sniped

**Sniped**

**-**

It was a job. 

She was just like any other person making an honest living. There was no reason for the heavy, metallic feeling in her gut. The dryness of her mouth and the shake to her hands. 

“C’mon,” Astrid hissed, adjusting her grip on the gun for the hundredth time. It wasn’t her first job, not even her first kill. She’d had the sight locked on her target for almost an hour now. Sweat beaded on her skin, tickling as it trekked down the back of her neck. “Do it, just do it.”

There was no one she could blame but herself. It was rule number one to leave the client’s business alone. Don’t snoop, don’t get involved. She should’ve been in and out that first night, but she’d been curious. Stoick Haddock was a high-profile kill. Politicians always were. She’d just wanted to see if he was the same in private as he was on the election trail. 

Most of the people she’d been paid to kill deserved it. She did have standards, after all. But usually they had a shiny, charming exterior to hide their sins. Maybe it made her feel better about pulling the trigger, getting to glimpse behind the masks. It was a guilty pleasure, getting to sleep peacefully at night, and if keeping an eye on Stoick Haddock for a few days gave her that clear conscience, she’d do it.

But damn it, she should have stayed out of it.

Astrid stretched her hands, feeling the tendons pull and loosen. Her body ached from crouching for so long, but she’d been watching Stoick’s office for hours before he even showed. Now he was sitting at his coffee table with what looked like stacks of paperwork spread in messy array in front of him. His suit jacket was tossed over his small leather couch, and his tie was loosened at his throat. He was in his own world, the only person still left in the building. She’d made sure of it. 

It would be quiet. And at least mostly painless. He’d never feel a moment of fear.

With a steadying breath, she curled her hand around the grip and lowered her cheek to the stock once more. Her gaze magnetized to the lines of the reticle. The calm of the hunt made her aware of the breeze on her skin and the pulse of blood in her ears. 

She inhaled. Exhaled. And commanded her finger to pull–

In the rifle’s telescopic sight, the door behind Stoick’s shoulder swung open. Astrid tore away from the weapon with such force that it wobbled on its mount. 

She swore, heart racing. Her hand tingled with the feel of the shot still trapped in her bones. The security guard had left already, she knew. This new arrival had slipped past her somehow. 

Sharp eyes flicked to the parking lot. A familiar motorcycle was parked sloppily across a handicapped spot. 

Her breath poured out in one heavy, defeated rush. A laugh– bitter and humorless– slipped past her lips. Astrid let her body unfurl from its position and leaned against the wall that lipped the roof she’d made her vantage point. 

“Damn it, Hiccup.” She let her legs stretch out, feeling the relief in her muscles as they released their tension. Eyes screwed shut, Astrid gently beat a fist against her forehead. Her jaw tightened, teeth grinding.

Who knows how long she sat there, feeling the night air on her face. At least long enough for her heart to stop pounding. At least long enough for her to wonder what Stoick’s son was doing at his father’s office so late. 

With a sigh, she leaned forward and twisted to check the sight. The two were still at Stoick’s coffee table, but instead of the flat stare of someone doing paperwork, there was a smile on the politician’s face and a carton of take-out in his hand. 

He’d brought his dad dinner. Of course. How utterly like him.

Astrid untwisted, sitting back and letting her eyes flick to the sky. Too much light pollution to see the stars, but she knew they were there. Just like they’d been there the night of the charity benefit, when they spent the entire evening in formal attire in the bed of his truck. 

She remembered the heat of that night, the niggling thought that she should go inside and watch Stoick instead of listen to his son ramble about the engineering of animal prostheses. It was the third or fourth time she’d ended up spending time with him instead of his father, and it became increasingly more pleasureable with each meeting. The ruse was that she was a reporter writing a piece on Stoick and the election, and she should’ve been inside of the event just to keep up the persona– but they never moved. 

He’d held his hands out to her from the bed of the truck, reaching for her. And she’d taken them, letting him pull her up and steady her when her ankles faltered atop her heels. They sat across from each other, first on the wheel wells and then eventually on the floor of the truckbed. 

They talked about his job, how he’d ended up working with disabled animals. She’d danced around the topic of her own job, since it was a lie. They talked about his accident, how he’d ended up losing his leg, and how his dad had nearly stepped down from his office to care for his newly-crippled son. She tried not to give too much information about her parents, who were always more business than love.

“Will he be mad?” she’d asked, picking absently at the sequins of her dress. “That you’re not inside schmoozing?”

Hiccup shook his head, lips pressed into an easy smile. “Nah. He’s not as uptight as he used to be.” His eyes were so green, and they seemed to look into other universes, other times when he spoke. “The older I get, the more he lets me do my own thing.”

“I can’t imagine,” she’d murmured. She hated it– how  _human_  Stoick was. As hard as she tried to find fault in him, she failed. And the deeper she dug, the more difficult it became, sitting next to them and pretending to be a friend. 

It wasn’t just that Hiccup was so close to his father. Or that he was in the business of making broken things whole again. There was something in his mannerisms, the way he moved. He took up space, with the way he spoke with his hands and shrugged his shoulders while he talked. He walked with a stride– not quite a limp, but a step that wasn’t cocky enough to be a swagger. He was simultaneously comfortable with who he was and still awkward enough to make self-deprecating jokes– just to watch her reaction with an eagerness. Like it was his only goal to make her smile. 

It made her feel things in places she’d forgotten existed. That night in the truck, she told him how she’d never felt like she’d been able to choose anything but her family. They gave the orders and she obeyed. She told him how it made her feel like a machine, a product of their making. And maybe if he’d known the truth it would’ve been different, but he watched her without judgement or pity, and it made something stir in her chest that felt like danger and excitement.

“Do you want to go somewhere?” he’d asked her after that, while she was still trying to wonder if she could scrub all of her exposed feelings off of the steel and rust between them. Those eyes- green even in the orange of the parking lot lights– smiled in a way she wasn’t sure she knew how to do.

“Anywhere,” she’d breathed.

That night, he’d found a spot in the dark to park his truck. And she’d guided his hand to the zipper of her dress. And under weak and straining constellations, he’d kissed her until she forgot about the ruse and the lies. It was Astrid the killer who touched him, not Astrid the writer, and maybe she was wrong but it didn’t seem like he minded. The humidity stuck to her skin and left her hair clinging to her neck and his chest. They whispered about things they didn’t dare to say out loud to anybody else, but never quite the secrets that Astrid wanted to tell. 

Now it was all so astoundingly complicated. 

Astrid rubbed her eyes, wishing she could rub the memories of that night away too. They were too warm, too irresponsibly precious. She thought of the smell of cologne and motor oil and her chest tightened. 

 _It’s a job_ , she told herself over and over.  _It’s a job_. 

But it wasn’t. No matter how much she wanted it to be. A job, she could quit. 


End file.
